AustLit

'This paper, written at the culmination of a practice-led PhD project in creative writing, describes how the author's engagement with oral history theory and practice enriched the design of the novel emerging from the thesis. The novel, based on oral history interviews and archival materials, blurs the boundaries between historically verifiable information and fiction. Many fiction writers draw on interviews and archival material, but not all of them feel so tied to this material that they disclose its influence on their work. However, authors such as Dave Eggers, Anna Funder, Terry Whitebeach and Padma Viswanathan explicitly identify their novels as based on extended oral histories. While these authors describe their process to some extent, there is a lack of deep theoretical discussion around the task of transforming oral histories into fiction. This paper extends this discussion by providing a practitioner's account of how two key concerns of the oral history project in Australia - a concern with subjectivity and making oral history interviews accessible to a wide audience - underpin the design of the novel. The author concludes that the unique qualities of fiction can explore subjective experience, but the authenticity demanded of novels based on verifiable data can be constraining, and should not be elevated above a concern for the satisfactions of the reader.' (Author's abstract)

'This article is a piece of creative non-fiction that explores the construction of place in the multimedia installation work of artist William Kentridge. The article explores the installation Black Box, an acclaimed miniature theatre work that traces the roots of the racist ideology of the Nazis back to the German massacre of the indigenous Herero in south-west Africa in 1905 and the methods of racial management that prefigured the development of the Nazi concentration camps. Through the exploration of the German colonial adventure, the article raises questions about the links between German colonial policies and those developed in Australia.

The installation is an experimental work and the article works with a performative writing style to evoke the dynamics of the artwork as it oscillates between historical detail and audiovisual phantasmagoria. As such, the piece experiments with structures of rhythm and repetition and the use of excess in a way that mirrors the kaleidoscopic montage that characterises the installation.' (Author's abstract)